What is it about Las Vegas that makes us want to throw good money after bad? A few brief examples keep us scratching our heads:
Tennis, anyone? Empty seats at the Darling Tennis Center and sagging ticket sales have proprietors of the Tennis Channel Open considering decamping. If so, they’ll leave having gotten the better end of the deal. The Tennis Channel, which owns the tournament, made out like bandits: $1.4 million from the City Council (which initially approved $300,000); $1 million from Las Vegas Events, which uses room-tax revenue to lure revenue-producing events to the city. To top it off: all the profits from the event.
Train, train go away: Don’t believe the hype about our underperforming people-mover not costing taxpayers anything. (The Monorail ferries 20,000 riders daily, less than half of the expected 53,000.) Should the $650 million bond-financed system default, financial experts say the state could face higher interest rates on its debts, and lawmakers could seek tax hikes to continue its operation.
Can you hear me now? After spending $14 million for a computer radio system in the late ’90s, the Nevada Highway Patrol bought unlicensed radio frequencies without Federal Communications Commission approval. D’oh! Then-Gov. Kenny Guinn bailed out NHP, signing a bill authorizing $16.5 million to buy equipment that worked on the frequencies.
Neonopoly: The city mortgaged a pretty penny ($32 million in taxpayer subsidies) on this block-long, three-story, ill-designed—motorists can’t see in; patrons can’t see out—tenant-challenged edifice. The bane of two mayors (Jan Jones and Oscar Goodman), Neonopolis has hemorrhaged money and foundered as nearby areas of Downtown have enjoyed a mini-renaissance.
Regional Justice Center: To look at the RJC as it is now—a stately 18-story structure, hub of all things legal and judicial—is to forget that the Downtown facility came in $33 million over budget (needing a county-funded bailout). Even so, things aren’t all hunky dory: There aren’t enough elevators. On busy days, the lines to use the elevators run four to five deep.